Apple Maine Mall — Local services in South Portland

Would give negative stars if I could. Don’t go here. Worst customer service experience ever. I’m truly disgusted.

Intake process was fine (well, pretty much). When they brought my phone out when it was done, there were noticeable scratches and scuffs on the edges of the phone body where the phone body meets the screen that were not there before. Mind you that they have to remove the screen from the phone body to repair anything in your phone. You’re not allowed to watch the process, nor do they take photos of your phone beforehand so that you can prove anything. I was simply going in for a new phone battery (and the battery replacement took over an hour).

I told the guy who brought my phone out when it was done (who was different from the guy who took it in to repair) about the above noticeable scratches, and he asked me, “What would you like us to to?” in a pleasant tone. I thought that was good, like they were going to do something about it. I asked for a small discount, or whatever it would be that they would do to make it right. He said he had to get a manager. Here’s where it all goes downhill.

The manager, “Emily” (if that’s her real name - read on to find out why) who had the appearance like she was going to remedy the situation, got condescending on me pretty much right away and said that their repair people don’t damage anything, and that if they do, they do something about it and “own it” and that it wasn’t the case with my phone (mind you, they have no proof).

I re-explained for like the fourth time that the scratches and scuffs were not there when they took my phone in. She says they “documented” minor scratches when my phone was taken in, which is silly because I take super good care of my phone, and there is nary a ding on it anywhere (mind you they take off your phone case and hand it back to you when they take your phone in with no case or anything to protect it).

The rude manager “Emily” blocked any resolution to the issue. Mind you that I was friendly the entire time. She then literally said to me “I’m not willing to discount anything for your phone” in a condescending way of course, and this is in front of everyone on the floor. Once again, she offered nothing else to remedy the situation nor make it right in any way. Why the other guy asked “What would you like us to do?” is beyond me, probably just lip service. I told “Emily” that I would not be coming back to this store for anything, and she said “Ok!” like it was nothing and walked away. There was zero attempt for any resolution to the problem, and it was all blamed on me.

Lastly, I asked the guy who brought my phone out what his name was, and - if you can believe it - he literally said to me “I don’t have to give you that information” and walked away. I kid you not. Probably covering their asses for the damage they cause.

I kept my composure even though I was super pissed. On my way out I passed “Emily” (who of course kept hovering nearby) and I said “thanks for wasting my time” and she immediately scoffed at me to other employees that she was standing near. So professional adding insult to injury. Absolutely no managerial skills whatsoever.

Like I said, don’t go here. Unless you enjoy people damaging your devices, blaming you, scamming you, and then refusing to tell you what their name is while doing nothing to make it right. I wish I had looked up reviews before going in - there are a lot of 1 star reviews.

If they reply on here, I’m sure it will be just as accusatory and snarky as it was in person. I’m definitely going to Best Buy for any other issues, as many others have advised...

Ok so many things wrong with this store! One thing to be understood is the severity of service required of a $800 dollar phone obtains an issue. The wife and I went into this store this morning and were not given any customer service! We purchased our phones through AT&T and had an issue with the way the phone was manufactured, it obtained moisture..? First thing is first these phones are advertising they have water resistance, second thing is this phone has never touched water no cracks nor scratches for that matter! %100 protected when purchased less then 3 months ago. The wife woke up this morning and noticed 2 little black circles bottom right and top right. We traveled to this store to not only be told to wear masks but they had mall security taking peoples temps and making people put masks on! One issue these people are not medical personnel and second being we do not need to wear a mask if we do not want to(our rights say so). I understand what your trying to do is help but people will ask or do it for them selves and don’t need the abrasive situation that makes things worse. So big complaint here and it’s this, whether you put a light to it or not it’s a manufactured defect the seal it broken on the right side of the phone, I’ve been in communications my whole life and know what’s wrong with my wife’s phone but I’m not the retailer! The QUOTE UNQUOTE TECH that looked at her phone says you got water in it, and there’s nothing we can do! So now I’m writing this because it’s my investment and your TECH was wrong with who’s at fault. This phone has never been around water let alone been near water, the phones seal is faulty and would like someone who knows what they are talking about or even looking at to take on our complaint. We went through a massive SHOTSHOW just to get in the door for some Uneducated tech to turn us around with our properly investigating the tech! Because of such a poor experience and the need for a phone for my wife we then went back to AT&T and was told we had insurance and set up for one to arrive in 2 days! Problem not solved because we had insurance and this Dumb Tech didn’t want to deal with us because we didn’t have an appointment and like the Rep at AT&T said they have been pushing people away feeding them lies so the people will go somewhere else because of...

Update: Bumping this up to 4 stars because they finally fixed some of the issues and they did try to help me to the best of their ability for 4 of my 6 visits to the store. Still not giving 5 stars because it took 6 visits and 4.5 months to figure this out. Additionally, I'm not convinced that they knowingly solved the issue, seems more like they just kept trying things until something worked and during the last visit the tech speculated that if these software fixes don't last then there could also hardware issue but said that at this point my phone is no longer under warranty, which is annoying because this should have all been sorted out ages ago.

I went in to fix an ongoing issue with my less than one-year-old phone and they offered to replace my phone because they thought it was a hardware issue, which I really appreciated. However, data from my old phone was lost because they didn't wait for the iCloud backup to finish before they started setting up the new phone. It took 3 visits in as many days, a phone call (with a very condescending guy), and then another visit two weeks later for them to figure out that this was the issue. I did not get any sort of apology for the error on their part that caused the lost data. Additionally, I switched cell phone carriers the day before before my last visit and then during that visit the tech repeatedly dismissed a Carrier Settings update that kept popping up without asking me if it was okay. I've never received any other prompts for this update so I haven't been able to update my carrier settings and am now having cell service issues.

I would not recommend this store because they caused my original missing data issue and it took them way too long to figure out what happened, and also because I waited half an hour for my first visit despite arriving on time for a scheduled appointment. I will give them two stars because they did replace my old phone and did really try to solve the missing data issue. The customer service is very hit or miss, some of their techs are very nice and helpful while others are dismissive and condescending. This review is probably a moot point though since this is the only Apple store in the entire state so it's not like we have any...